Author Description

"In an era of force reductions and shrinking military budgets, the U.S. Air Force has found it increasingly difficult to fill manpower authorizations--not only operational and staff positions that support mission demands but also additional requirements for particular career fields. One source of these additional requirements is institutional requirements, or manpower requirements that do not align with a traditional, functional career field but are needed to support the Air Force institution. Examples include recruiter, instructor, generalist staff officer, and operational support positions. The challenge for career field managers is that institutional requirements compete for the same pool of personnel. These assignments may also affect the career development of individual officers. Through discussions with key stakeholders in the Air Force and the other services, consultations with industry experts, and a review of data on the current and historical use of institutional requirements and associated processes in the Air Force, this report documents how the Air Force could reduce the impact of filling these positions on traditional career fields while ensuring that the organizations that depend on institutional requirements are staffed with the qualified personnel they need. To achieve this goal, the Air Force will need to pursue multiple strategies, such as a periodic review and elimination of positions that are persistently vacant or no longer valid requirements, steps to make more personnel available to fill these positions, converting some types of institutional requirements to their own career fields, or changing how institutional requirements are managed."--Publisher's description.